Does Speed Wrap® ESi Really Perform as well as Pipe Insulation 2½ times as thick?

One of the greatest features of Speed Wrap® ESi is how well it insulates at just over 3/8″ thick. To demonstrate these insulating properties, we analyze how Speed Wrap® ESi compares to traditional fiberglass pipe insulation using the industry recognized 3E Plus® software.

The chart below compares the efficiency of Speed Wrap® ESi to different thicknesses of fiberglass pipe insulation on pipes increasing in size from 1/2″ IPS to 6″ IPS. Speed Wrap® ESi performs substantially better than 1/2″ thick fiberglass pipe insulation. To answer the question posed in the title of this post, the graph shows that Speed Wrap® ESi pipe insulation actually outperforms 1″ thick fiberglass on pipes up to 1½” IPS. They are pretty comparable on pipes sizes of 2″ to 3″ IPS, with fiberglass having a slight edge in the 4″ to 6″ IPS range. We included 2″ and 3″ fiberglass pipe insulation to show the diminishing return of additional thickness. Installing 3″ of fiberglass pipe insulation only yields gains of about 4% to 6% over 3/8″ thick Speed Wrap® ESi pipe insulation.